Using RV generator as backup for house?
My electricity is still on in Middle TN, no worries. But that may not always be the case in the future! If I have a transfer switch properly installed, is there any reason I can't use the RV gene...
Forum Discussion
opnspaces wrote:coolmom42 wrote:time2roll wrote:
3000 watts should run that house fine. Electrician will probably put the critical items on a 120v sub panel in addition to installing a switch and a power inlet to connect power.
My generator is 4000 watts. It would be nice to be able to run the whole house, including TV & internet. Not essential, but nice.
Just wanted to touch on this because I had the same thoughts about how cool it would be to keep the internet up. The problem is unless you are tethering the internet through cellular, once the power goes out the internet goes out too. Yes I can get my cable modem back up and running on the generator. But after the signal leaves my modem it is dropped by some unknown system down the line because it has no power either. So in reality once the power goes out the internet goes with it.
Cable Internet uses the same cable as their TV services and in order to have enough signal to arrive at your home they must use booster amps along the cable run every so many miles.
Those booster amps are mounted on the poles the cable is hung on and they must get power from the electric company.. If you lose power in the wrong place between the cable co plant to your home, your Internet like the cable TV will go down..
My local Cable Co has backup batteries in their pole mounted amps, but that only is good for about 2 hrs.
Was one of the issues that I knew was going to happen when DW needed faster speed than the phone co DSL service we had.. Last week ram into the cable co's battery backup limitation after we had a power outage for 3 hrs and the Internet went down after 2 hrs..
Phone co DSL is powered directly from the switching stations' battery and gen backups so as long as the phone lines were not damaged the Internet stayed up indefinitely..
Another reason I am not jumping on the streaming bandwagon and staying with my Dish, the cord cutting streamers will be disappointed and have nothing to watch when their high speed cable Internet quits due to power outage :B
